Feel it to heal it

 The ego does not want to teach everyone all it has, because that would defeat its purpose. (ACIM)

 

A friend once said to me in frustration, “you strike me as a dude who has recently discovered what feelings are.” Funny, but there tends to be a little truth in every sarcastic remark. I have a big heart, but an equally powerful mind that puts its story on the heart-centered energy. This combination makes me a good writer, but it blocks the genuine spiritual experience. What to do to break out of this catch 22?

 

We have a letting go study group where we practice the teachings of Suzhen Liu’s “Letting Go—Release your Suffering” book. My letting go exercise was simple, I wanted to let go of the subconscious drive to be someone which is in obvious conflict with my spiritual calling. I listened to a J. Krishnamurti talk in which he said, “I am jealous. It’s a fact! “I want to be someone”, I said with conviction, and felt stuck energy flowing.

 

This point is hard to express but it is really important to stress. When you have an insight, is it an intellectual comprehension or is it a real actual perception? I have observed my drive to be an economist, investor, author, teacher, etc. for a while, but it was an intellectual observation based on what I say, do or feel. We have an insight, but we cannot reach the raw power of this drive because an inner observer overrides it at the same time.

 

Feeling the raw power moving gives us a chance to let go of it. Something else happened after I did these letting go sentences. I went to the gym, and while exercising I noticed a strange inner dialogue. As a student I had that weird fantasy of being able to speed read books to also have a social life. It occurred to me that with AI and quantum computers even that wouldn’t be fast. “Who cares as long as I am faster than anyone else,” I thought. What?!?

 

This strange inner dialogue happened almost beneath my conscious knowledge. It was dream-like in nature and had I not written it down, I immediately would have forgotten about it. I didn’t want to know. It was just too ugly. All my life I felt that I had been hunting for the truth but to realize in black and white that all the while the desire to be someone was behind it was a big blow. Seeing conditioning beneath the hood was a big release.

 

We have to feel it to heal it. All ego cravings are programs. Judging them and fighting them is of no use. We have to see what is in order to have a shot at releasing this energy. We are all wired to understand issues intellectually and then take a position on it, but we don’t understand that the institution reflecting on the issue and taking a position afterwards is the same institution we want to get rid off in a spiritual quest.